Aggression Pays: Message Of Clinton Plan For Bosnia

The Bosnia peace agreement, brokered in private marathon
sessions by the Clinton administration, raises many more
questions than it answers. One thing, however, is certain: the
clarion call "never again" rings hollow, aggression
pays, and the future looks grim for the Bosnian Muslims.

What will the peace pact achieve that could not have been
realized without the sacrifice of tens of thousands of Muslim
lives. Had President Bush stood firm, the Serbs could have been
stopped dead in their tracks. But there was to be no "line
in the sand" for the Muslims. Mr. Bush had an election
coming, the euphoria over the Gulf War was wearing thin, and the
U.S. had no vital interests, like oil, in far off Bosnia. Even
more importantly, the emergence of a democratic, secular state,
in which Muslims are in the majority, would have undermined
Western propaganda against Muslims seeking to govern themselves,
rather than be led by puppet regimes subservient to the West.

Today, a number of factors have come together. The Croats and
Muslim in recent months have recaptured large parts of their
territories from the Serbs. This exploded Washington's
nonintervention scenario that repulsing the aggressor Serbs
could involve the U.S. in an open-ended Vietnam-type war. The
United Nation's dismal peace keeping failure, the differences
between NATO allies and the Atlantic Alliance's exposure as
"a paper tiger," along with reports of large scale
Serb war crimes forced the Clinton administration to say 'enough
is enough' and get NATO air power to knock out Serb radar
systems and weapons. Meanwhile, the international sanctions
against Belgrade were hurting Serbia. President Slobodan
Milosevic, now uncertain of support from the ailing Russian
President Yeltsin, was forced to accept the Clinton peace
accord.

Most importantly, the pressure to lift the arms embargo on
the Muslims was growing. This, President Clinton, and his
allies, could not permit. Finding an alternative became
paramount.

The resulting Clinton plan for Bosnia, in effect, legitimizes
Serb aggression. It sets aside the Bosnian constitution, and
forces the multi-party, secular, parliamentary democracy of
Bosnia to accept a secession of forty-nine percent of its
territory to the rebel Serbs. None of this would have been
necessary were it not for the fact that the U.S. led Western
governments denied the Bosnian government, for so long, that
most basic of human rights; the right to self defence.

Bosnia has been partitioned, like the Middle East, India, and
other countries were partitioned by foreign powers. The
aftereffects of those actions are felt keenly by the citizens of
those countries to this day. Is Bosnia's misery over? No. Will
Bosnia even continue to exist as agreed to in the treaty? Will
the Muslims ultimately be left with only a city/state: Sarajevo?